It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

re:

by Thom Hartmann A...

May. 15, 2012 8:01 am

If asked what’s more important – being rich or being an American – Conservatives choose being rich…even when they could be both. The right-wing is showering praise on Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin after he renounced his U.S. citizenship last week just to avoid paying capital gains taxes on the fortune he’ll make when Facebook goes public this week.

Despite capital gains taxes being at historically low levels, and despite Saverin having no intention of investing any of his enormous wealth in the nation that made his success possible – Forbes Magazine calls Saverin an “American Hero.” And columnist John Tammy suggests that Saverin’s decision will lead to other successful businessmen following suit, writing: “Assuming nosebleed rates of taxation were a driver of Saverin’s decision, politicians will hopefully see that, if too greedy about collecting the money of others, they’ll eventually collect nothing.” So it’s OK to be anti-American as long as you’re pro-business.

What the Right doesn’t understand is – many 1%ers in America have already seceded from the nation – even though they’re still technically U.S. citizens. Living in their own gated communities, attending their own private schools, flying in their own private jets, paying their own lower capital gains tax rate, and vacationing year-round in their own McMansions around the world – today’s Romney super-rich don’t have any idea what life is like for the typical working American. Like Saverin – they’ve already left the country.

Comments

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

by TheFirstLeftist

May. 15, 2012 8:34 am

Quote Thom Hartmann Administrator:

So it’s OK to be anti-American as long as you’re pro-business.

What the Right doesn’t understand is – many 1%ers in America have already seceded from the nation – even though they’re still technically U.S. citizens. Living in their own gated communities, attending their own private schools, flying in their own private jets, paying their own lower capital gains tax rate, and vacationing year-round in their own McMansions around the world – today’s Romney super-rich don’t have any idea what life is like for the typical working American. Like Saverin – they’ve already left the country.

It is interesting that you view government and society the same way Sean Hannity does. You think they're the same. Being American, to me, is an idea, not a nationality. So what if someone renounces their citizenship. They are under no legal obligation to pay for me. What's wrong with living in a gated community or sending your child to private schools. Why do you aggregate rich people who got rich satisfying their fellow man and rich people who use goverment to extract wealth from the little guy?

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

by captbebops

May. 15, 2012 8:46 am

The problem is that the attitude of this guy from Facebook is like a "middle ages" crook with a rape and pillage scheme. This kind of behavior makes one want to see the pendulum swing the other way to complete socialism without any free enterprise. And that could happen as a backlash against such people and behavior. Better to re-institute progressive tax rates again because when those existed the country flourished.

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

It's like Thom says in one of his tv announcements "have you ever heard a story and thought you knew everything about it, and then....? Clearly, you didn't get enough exposure, and it's a chuckle to me that you identify Thom with Hannity! LOL (i'm old and just recently found out what LOL means!) Stick around, we don't hate "rich" people and it's my lifelong personal experience that "rich" people "owned" every industry I've worked; from education to fine arts; took all the cash up front and borrowed my commissions from the banks! Never saw a "garaunteed residual commission" in my 40 years! COL (that's Cry Out Loud!) Sure could use them now!

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

by Bush_Wacker

May. 15, 2012 3:21 pm

His fortune would not have been possible without the American citizens who use his toy. He refuses to pay anything back to the citizens who made his fortune possible. He renounces citizenship in order to not contribute to the commons he used all along. He will undoubtedly remain in the US as a "legal" alien in order to keep benefitting from the commons of the United States.

What a friggin tool. Anyone who thinks this is the right thing to do is a tool.

What I don't get is even though he hasn't gone public with the company yet, it's "worth" has already been established while he was a US citizen. He should still be taxed on the worth of his gaines. That would be like me working and deferring my wages for 20 years until I could "opt out" of the tax system and then collecting my wages. It's crooked in every way shape and form. And the republicans call having sex outside of marriage sinful "corruption". LOL

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

It's long been my observation that the uber-rich have been extracting as much wealth as they could from this country until the U.S. collapses in massive debt and depression and they then flee to other countries to live off the largess they've hidden around the world. Romney's cache in Swiss and Caribbean and God knows what other off-shore accounts is just one example. Saverin is the first to go public by thumbing all the Americans who made him rich. It's the wealthy who have created class war in recent years by using their wealth and influence to buy legislators and win huge government contracts, legislation that benefits them exclusively and tax breaks. Then they turn around and complain that the 99%ers are lazy, insolent, good-for-nothings that want to leach off of them! When companies were locally and family-owned and operated in years past, they took a good profit but also made sure their employees and communities had basic benefits as well. Now that unceasingly growing profits are the only measure of success, the humanity of those who make the success possible is not taken into account at all. After all, it is the workers who create the new inventions, innovative drugs and chemicals, the cars on the assembly line -- not the CEO. Why shouldn't the real manufacturers of products share in the profit instead of owners taking it all? Why does the Walton Family, for one, need to keep adding to their wealth, which already exceeds that of the bottom third of the nation, while paying near-minimum wages to their workers? The wealthy's industries have benefitted from our nation's military protection, transportation system, workers trained by our public-financed educational system, etc. It's not too much to ask them to pay for these benefits that have helped build their wealth all on the public dime.

re: It’s okay to be anti-American, as long as you’re pro-business?

by captbebops

May. 16, 2012 2:04 pm

As I heard a radio host say the other day: "the A students from high school wind up working for the B students who manage the companies that the C students founded." IOW, many top execs are not that bright. They just have gumption and the balls to push through things that more rational people would not. They often run their businesses like they are playing poker and bluff a lot. I've seen this up close with family members who were corporate execs.

I always found the term from the 1980s, "go-go bankers" to be fitting to corporate business types as "go-go execs." And there is always "armchair business wannabes" who raise their glasses on high to toast these people as doing the "right stuff" because that's where they want to be some day. Hindus had it right with putting the business people on the third rung of the caste system.